What do you get with Print?

Instant access to your digital eBook copy whilst your Print order is Shipped

Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

AI Assistant (beta) to help accelerate your learning

Git for Programmers

Creating Your Repository

In this chapter, you will learn how to create an account on GitHub, and how to create and clone your first repository so that you have a link between the repository on your computer and that on GitHub.

This chapter will cover:

Creating your repository
Git pull
Push me, pull you
Starting at the command line
Commits – best practices

We'll start by creating your GitHub repository.

Creating your repository

There are a number of different ways to create your repository. We'll cover creating a repository on GitHub and cloning it to your disk, as this is the most common way.

Creating your repository on GitHub first

Your first step is to register with GitHub. Go to http://github.com and click Sign Up. Fill in your username (it will tell you if the name is taken) and your email and it may ask you to verify that you are a human. Assuming you are, click Create Account.

Fill out their micro-survey and click Create Account. You will be asked to verify your email, and once you do, you'll see the (one-time) opening page asking what you want to do first. Choose Create a repository:

Figure 2.1: Getting started with GitHub

If you already have an account, sign in and press New Repository. You may not find this at first glance, in which case click the big plus sign in the corner.

Either way, you will be brought to the Create A New Repository page. The first job is to give your new repository a name. I'll use ProGitForProgrammers. Feel free to use any name you want as long as GitHub doesn't complain that the name is taken.

Now it is time to fill in the form:

Figure 2.2: Creating the repository

Start by entering a short description of your project. Next, and very importantly, choose whether you want this repository to be public (anyone can see it) or private (only people you invite can see it).

I strongly recommend checking Add a README file. This will be what is shown to users when they come to your repository. You can fix the file up later using Markdown.

Be sure to add a .gitignore file. This tells Git which files to ignore when checking your files into the repository. This can be very important so that you don't overwrite another programmer's metadata files. Click the dropdown and admire how many languages are supported; for C# I recommend you search for and choose Visual Studio.

If your repository is public, be certain to choose a license for the code. I chose the MIT License. You can learn more about this license at https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.

That's it! You are ready to click Create repository. When you do, you'll be brought to the home page for your new GitHub repository:

Figure 2.3: Initial view of your repository

Notice that you have the three files you asked for, and that you can see a preview of the README as well as the description you entered.

Right now, this repository exists only on the server. You want to put a copy on your disk so that you can add code and use commands to keep them in sync. Therefore you will "clone" the repository; that is, you'll make an exact copy of the remote repository in your local repository.

How you will do this will depend on whether you are using the command line, Visual Studio, or a GUI.

Cloning to your computer – command line

Cloning to your local repository is easy. Open your terminal (or PowerShell) and change the directory to where you want the repository to go (in my case GitHub/the command line).

Switch back to your GitHub repo on GitHub.com, and see the green button in the upper right-hand corner marked Code. Click that button and a small dialog box will open. Choose HTTPS unless you know you have SSH (as I do). In either case, click on the clipboard icon to copy the address:

Figure 2.4: Copying the address of the repo

Return to the command line, enter git clone, and then paste in the address:

git clone git@github.com:JesseLiberty/ProGitForProgrammers.git

You should see something like this:

Figure 2.5: Cloning at the command line

Change the directory to ProGitForProgrammers and you'll see that the three files that were on the server are now here as well:

Figure 2.6: Files in the directory

Now let's take a look at how to do this in Visual Studio.

Cloning to your computer – visual studio

Go to your directory (in my case GitHub) and make a directory called VisualStudio.

Open Visual Studio with no project. Select File | Clone Repository. Fill in the fields and click Clone:

Figure 2.7: Cloning to your local repository using Visual Studio

A few seconds later you will see the three files, now shown in the Solution Explorer:

Figure 2.8: Cloned files in Visual Studio

There are a number of ways to clone from a GitHub repository to your own. One way is to use a dedicated GUI tool such as GitHub Desktop.

Cloning to your computer – GitHub for Desktop

Once again, return to your root directory (GitHub) and make a new directory. This time call it GitHubDesktop.

Now, return to GitHub and click Code:

Figure 2.9: Cloning directly through GitHub Desktop

Notice that one of the choices is Open with GitHub Desktop. Click on that. A dialog will open. The only field you need to fill in is the local path. Click Clone:

Figure 2.10: Cloning to GitHub Desktop using HTTP

Notice that GitHub Desktop wants the https URL for your repository.

You now have three copies of your original repository, each in its own directory: CommandLine, VisualStudio, and GitHubDesktop. These might represent three programmers working on the same solution, or various ways for one programmer to choose to clone their project.

Creating a project

We need a project. Using Visual Studio (or your favorite editor) create a project called ProGitForProgrammers in the CommandLine directory. When you are done, you should have the three original files and a folder for your program. In that folder will be the .sln file as well as a folder for the code.

Open the command line and navigate to the same directory. When you get there your command line should look something like this:

Figure 2.11: The command-line prompt

Look at the yellow, where you see +1 ~0 -0. The +1 means you've added a file or a directory; the ~0 indicates that no files have been modified; the -0 indicates that no files have been deleted. Let's see what was added. Enter:

git status

You should see something like this:

Figure 2.12: Untracked files

Git is telling you that you are on the branch main (the only branch for now) and that you have "untracked files" – that is, files that are in the directory but that are not being tracked by Git. If they are untracked, Git can't store them; in fact, Git knows nothing about them. Let's fix that. Enter these commands:

git add ProGitForProgrammers/
git commit -m "First commit – from command line"

add tells Git that this is a file it should pay attention to and commit brings it into the local repository.

Every commit must have a message, and if you don't provide one, you'll be prompted by Git to add one. Here I've added it by using the -m flag.

Once again, all this is happening locally and so GitHub doesn't know about it. We can fix that by pushing our commit up to the server:

git push

Now if you go to GitHub and refresh the page your project will be there. You can click your way down through the folders, and even into Program.cs, to see the code:

Figure 2.13: Viewing your code on GitHub

Notice in the upper left that it tells you that you are on the main branch. Next to that is the path to get to Program.cs. Below that is the message you added, and then the file itself.

Key benefits

Master Git and maintain your projects better through version control

Get to grips with Git’s typical workflows, advanced functions, and their implementations

Learn the key Git commands to better manage your repository

Description

Whether you’re looking for a book to deepen your understanding of Git or a refresher, this book is the ultimate guide to Git. Git for Programmers comprehensively equips you with actionable insights on advanced Git concepts in an engaging and straightforward way. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll gain expertise (and confidence) on Git with lots of practical use cases. After a quick refresher on git history and installation, you’ll dive straight into the creation and cloning of your repository. You’ll explore Git places, branching, and GUIs to get familiar with the fundamentals. Then you’ll learn how to handle merge conflicts, rebase, amend, interactive rebase, and use the log, as well as explore important Git commands for managing your repository. The troubleshooting part of this Git book will include detailed instructions on how to bisect, blame, and several other problem handling techniques that will complete your newly acquired Git arsenal. By the end of this book, you’ll be using Git with confidence. Saving, sharing, managing files as well as undoing mistakes and basically rewriting history will be a breeze.

Who is this book for?

If you have basic understanding of Git and want to strengthen your command over advanced techniques and navigate different functions, this book is for you. Knowing the fundamentals of Git will help you get the most out of this book, but beginners willing to invest some extra effort will be able to follow along as well.

What you will learn

Create remote and local repositories and learn how to clone them

Understand the difference between local and remote repositories

Use, manage, and merge branches back into the main branch

Utilize tools to manage merge conflicts

Manage commits on your local machine through interactive rebasing

Use the log to gain control over all the data in your repository

Use bisect, blame, and other tools to undo Git mistakes

What do you get with Print?

Instant access to your digital eBook copy whilst your Print order is Shipped

Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

AI Assistant (beta) to help accelerate your learning

Frequently bought together

C# 10 and .NET 6 – Modern Cross-Platform Development

Can$101.99

Can$69.99

Expert Python Programming – Fourth Edition

Can$61.99

Total Can$ 233.97

Filter reviews by

All

Amazon verified reviews

Amazon Customer Jan 31, 2022

Terrible book.Author has no idea how to teach.Let me give you an example:Author recommends to install shell for pretty looks. I don't want that, so I skipped it and used the original cmd. It turns out whenever nothing works unless you google yourself why you're getting an error with as simple as a command git status, it gives you an error if you don't use git init. The author does not mention this, he assumes you should know this, yet he mentioned he does not expect to know anything about git.The list goes on, use git add name, guess what you get another error, good luck with you fixing this on your own.The author does not expect you face these issues ? still on page 21,Page 25 the author said click on staged, you look at his figure and there's no such a freaking button shown, where the heck is this button that I should click onyou want me to continue ...Don't waste your money

Amazon Verified review

david Jan 31, 2022

The author uses three interfaces: VS Code, Github Desktop, and Git CLI; to show some of the basic commands you'll often use with version control using git. Some of the CLI commands in the code examples aren't accurate (committing and adding a file in a single command), and some of the most interesting stuff doesn't even include CLI examples or is a mix of both GUI interface and CLI.A book on the topic, preferably for advanced team-oriented practices, deserves to be published - but this book doesn't fit the bill, especially for the price-tag it's currently at.I would suggest saving your money and using documentation or stackoverflow.

Brian Barnett Oct 12, 2021

I've been developing software for many years in the Microsoft stack. Along my journey, for source control I’ve used Visual SourceSafe (VSS), Team Foundation Server (TFS), and now Azure DevOps and GitHub. However, only within the last year have I begun to use Git. Having used TFS for a long time this is what I’ve been used to so switching to Git was somewhat of a paradigm shift. I knew Git was the new standard and had a lot of advantages, so I knew it was the right tool to use. As Jesse mentions in his book though, Git can be confusing especially with its many commands so I was having a hard time grasping what command to use when.Jesse does an excellent job distilling all of Git down to the core of what you really need to know to be successful as a developer, not exclusively, but especially if you are in a team environment. He demystifies many Git commands and concepts, particularly ones that tend to frighten the most hardened of developers. Rebase anyone? He doesn’t dive into the depths of how Git does what it does. He stays near the surface, giving you the key pieces of information you need to get your job done. Which is exactly what I wanted from a very practical book on Git.This is a great book that helps you get up to speed on the Git essentials quickly. He takes a very scenario-based approach, introducing you to common scenarios and guiding you through them, even walking you through how to get out of trouble should you find yourself making a wrong turn along the way.He uses the CLI, Visual Studio and Git Desktop for his demonstrations. Though at times demonstrating in all three tools can seem tedious and unnecessary, I found it helpful. Usually, in his multi-developer scenarios, one developer would use the CLI while another would use Visual Studio for example. The same will be true on your teams. You will have developers that will tend to use one tool over the other so being familiar with each is helpful. Learning the commands in the CLI is super beneficial for every developer. And I highly recommend installing PrettyGit, which Jesse mentions and uses. I'd done that prior to reading the book and can attest that it is very helpful while working in the CLI.I work in Visual Studio everyday, so I appreciated the fact he used Visual Studio. However, I have started using Visual Studio Code some and it would have been nice to have had demonstrations using it. However, I realize picking which tools to use in a book like this can be a hard decision to make. You can’t use them all otherwise the book would be a thousand pages long and hard to follow.I enjoyed the Challenges at the end of every chapter. They were a great way to practice what you learned in the chapter and solidify the concepts. Learn by doing is always the best approach.Thanks, Jesse, for a great book. You’ve helped this long-time developer, new to Git, become proficient in it and not be afraid of trying some of the more 'adventurous' commands :-). No matter your level of experience with Git, you will learn something new in this book. Highly recommended!

Randall Oct 08, 2021

I really like this book and was excited to see a new title published the topic since GIT is the defacto standard in software development. The book addressees the topics and will be a good reference to keep in my Kindle library. The problem I have is the switching between command line, Visual Studio Code and Docker Desktop loses some of the continuity and flow the book otherwise has. For example, if the read prefers to uses the Mac/os or linux command line and Atom as an editor, it is silly to have search where to read next to skip over the other two methods. Sure, perhaps somedays I may be assigned to a project where VSC is used, but I would rather but a dedicated book that ignores the other two ways.Overall, nice book from this author. I look forward to seeing more work from him as he is a valuable writer and instructor in the IT community.

Ricardo Jorge Melo Jóia Oct 07, 2021

Either you're a seasoned developer or just starting, git is already or will become one of the most used tools in your toolbox. Jesse's book is a cookbook with the most used commands that you might need and the "infamous" git rebase.The examples are clear and relatable to real world problems and they are shown using both the terminal and git integrations such as git for visual studio and github desktop! Either you use Windows, Linux or Mac, Jesse has your back! Examples on how to get it installed and running are provided.This book guides you through creating a repo, branching strategies, merging, pull requests and how to handle merge conflicts, how to amend commits, rebasing mentioned above and cherry-picking which you might and probably will need at some point.Jesse provides in his book plenty of other tips and tricks to make you a git ninja, deffo a book to have in your collection.

Git for Programmers: Master Git for effective implementation of version control for your programming projects

What do you get with Print?

Git for Programmers

Creating Your Repository

Creating your repository

Creating your repository on GitHub first

Cloning to your computer – command line

Cloning to your computer – visual studio

Cloning to your computer – GitHub for Desktop

Creating a project

Git pull

Pulling down using GitHub Desktop

Pulling down to Visual Studio

Page 1 of 7

Key benefits

Description

Who is this book for?

What you will learn

Product Details

What do you get with Print?

Product Details

Frequently bought together

Table of Contents

Recommendations for you

Customer reviews

Filter reviews by

People who bought this also bought

About the author

FAQs

Git for Programmers: Master Git for effective implementation of version control for your programming projects

What do you get with Print?

Key benefits

Description

Who is this book for?

What you will learn

Product Details

What do you get with Print?

Product Details

Packt Subscriptions

Frequently bought together

Table of Contents

Recommendations for you

Customer reviews

Filter reviews by

People who bought this also bought

About the author

FAQs